On several occasions in the months leading up to WordCamp Europe, which was held a few short weeks ago in Paris, people approached me to say that they’d heard things weren’t going well.

“Oh?”

“Yeah, I’ve heard that organizers aren’t happy,” was the short version of what I was told from these people outside of the organizing team.

This, of course, made me pretty sad, but not for the reasons you might think.

It didn’t make me sad that I was hearing this from people outside of the organization, rather than directly from those allegedly unhappy people I was working alongside.

It didn’t make me sad that people from inside the organization were saying such things to people outside of the team. I get the need to vent, and even more so that’s it’s easier to vent to people whose feelings you won’t risk hurting.

It didn’t even make me sad that people were unhappy in the first place. I was unhappy too at times, and shared the coming and going of my alternating elation and discontent over time with family, friends and co-organizers.

No, what made me sad was that these people coming to me thought they held some secret, privileged information. That they thought they were teaching me something I didn’t already know; that they even thought it was news worth spreading in the first place. Hashtag WPDrama.

What makes me sad is that people don’t realize something fundamental about organizing WordCamps, and WordCamps the size of WCEU in particular: you’ve gotta be a little nuts to do it in the first place.

My journey to date

Another recurring complaint that we heard time and time again, both from folks who weren’t attending and folks who were there, was, “I can’t believe you’re doing it in Paris.” “Paris is so expensive.” “Paris is dangerous.” “Paris is a terrible choice.” “Why Paris?”

…actually, let’s back up a few years, to 2013, when a bunch of fantastic and crazy folks in the European WordPress community got together, probably around a few gin & tonics and martinis, and thought it would be a great idea to unite people across borders, to have a great gathering of minds on this side of the Atlantic, to create a balance in the largely US-centric world of WordPress. And so WordCamp Europe was born, and brought together over 700 people from all parts of the world in the relatively small and little-known city of Leiden, the Netherlands, that fateful October.

Many minds were blown that weekend, many friendships forged, and a whole lotta people were inspired, including many from the French community, which immediately felt the effects and began to blossom nation-wide.

Fast forward a couple years to Seville: the announcement had just been made that WordCamp Europe would be traveling to Vienna in 2016, and the organizing team was calling for candidates for 2017. My twitter feed exploded with hashtag France, hashtag WCEU. The seed was planted.

Until then most of us hadn’t really thought about how the host cities were chosen, we just followed and marveled as we traveled from Leiden to Sofia to Seville, watching it grow and become something everyone wanted to continue experiencing. From what I’ve gathered since, those early organizers were figuring it out as they went along too: what started as a farfetched idea became an instant success. Since it had never been done before, there were no rules. There was no process other than following the guidelines of WordCamps in general, and the decision to change cities every year. They had a dream and a desire that the community responded well to, and they took it from there.

The application process

Interested parties were told to meet during Contributor Day, the Sunday after the WordCamp. Hungover, running on little sleep, and trying to beat the heat, a small group of us gathered on bean bags and armchairs in the lobby of the Barceló Gran Hotel Renacimiento to learn more about how the organizing team worked, and how to go about bringing the event to our cities.

I looked around. I was the only one there from France. There were also folks from Germany, Greece, and Serbia, among others.

We learned about how the organizing team was broken into what they called the “global” and the “local” team. The global team handled the aspects of the event that weren’t specific to a location: speakers, sponsors, design, volunteers and to an extent, communications.

We learned that the local team was responsable for finding venues and caterers for the main the event, Contributor Day, the speaker dinner and the afterparty. We learned that the local team also lent support to other teams around logistics, and provided practical information and knowledge around the host city (accommodations, transportation, tourisme, etc.).

We learned that candidates wishing to apply to be a future host city would need to propose:

A venue with a minimum capacity of around 1200 people (Seville had around 900 attendees), with at least 2 tracks. One track should be able to hold around 800 people, the second around 600.

A budget which already considered a long list of costs, including venues, catering, wifi, and printing (for badges, t-shirts, stickers and the like).

A city that was welcoming, accessible, affordable and an overall desirable destination.

Not intimidating at all. Hashtag sarcasm.

We were also told that they were looking to recruit people for the global team, not only host city candidates, and that serving on the team would be a good idea for any potential candidates to get a sense for how the team and the organization worked.

I signed up (disclaimer: I was hungover from the afterparty the night before and had barely slept, remember?).

Pitstop in Vienna

And so I joined the organizing team for WordCamp 2016, which took place in lovely Vienna, Austria. I was assigned to the speaker team, in charge of soliciting talk proposals, selecting speakers and devising the program for the two main conference days. Somewhere along the line I also got wrangled into helping out with various other tasks, including supporting the sponsor team, editing invoices, answering general emails and copyediting for the website.

Some of you might already know this, but for those who don’t: the event exploded that year, leaping from the 900 some-odd attendees in Seville to upwards of 1900 attendees! As a then relatively small team of 20 organizers, we had our work cut out for us. Jumping in to help where needed was a great opportunity for me to learn about different aspects of the organization.

The explosion in attendance also had a direct impact on the application I’d been preparing. You see, I wasn’t focused on Paris as a destination in my efforts to bring WCEU to France. I had my sights set on Lyon, and had already been down to visit a venue and scope things out. Lyon is a beautiful town, also easily accessible via international travel and lighter on the pocketbook than Paris.

But the word came down that applicants now needed to be proposing venues that could hold at least 2500 people, and even better if they could hold 3000. Three thousand people. I said it out loud to myself several times, and then changed gears. The venue I’d been looking at couldn’t hold that many people, but I’d also been hitting a wall with the local community in Lyon. The key contributors were working on other things, the meet ups had all but died off, the local community was not going to help.

The road to Paris

The funny thing is, in the end, very few of the incredible folks who worked with me on the local team to make Paris happen actually lived in Paris. Yes, this is a bit of an aside, but it’s part of this telling tale about the kind of person it takes to volunteer their time for something like this. I live in Normandy and traveled a half a dozen times, 5 hours roundtrip by train each time, to Paris on WordCamp business. Another teammate moved to Lyon soon after we kicked off. Another lives in Grenoble, Another, in central France and another in the southwest.

Not to mention the organizers from the global team from all over Europe and working from all parts of the world. We are freelancers and employees and business owners. A lot of us work in WordPress-related companies by day, but some of us work in completely unrelated fields. Some of us are unemployed. We are all volunteers. We all dedicate our time and energy for free to make WordCamp Europe happen.

This year we grew our team to 50 individuals to better distribute the burden and account for those team members who inevitably have something come up and cannot stay the course. We were 45 organizers by the time we got to Paris. 45 people working remotely, asynchronously, in a self-organizing fashion to bring 2000 people together from all parts of the world, recruit and manage over 200 additional volunteers to work the event, publish 200 articles to keep our attendees informed, order food, t-shirts, and find sponsors to help us pay for it all.

Think about your day job. The one you get paid for. And think about the difficulties you have. The times when you’ve been frustrated with management or your employees for various reasons. Think about those days when you’re just fed up because no matter how much you love it most days, sometimes you just need a break.

Now consider this group of 45 organizers working year round under extreme conditions, who also have day jobs.

Tell me we aren’t a little nuts.

And tell me that it’s not normal for us to gripe from time to time, to criticize management or our teammates. Tell me that it really surprises you that someone might complain or say they weren’t happy with the way things are going.

Next stop, Belgrade

I am so nuts in fact that I’ve signed up for one more year of this beautiful madness, because WordCamp Europe is that important to me. It gives me great pleasure and sense of purpose to be a part of bringing so many people together, giving us all this opportunity to meet, learn, hire, be hired, do business, share, inspire, be inspired and contribute to this incredible open source project we call WordPress.

And someone thought it would be a good idea for me to lead the charge too, probably because I’m the craziest of the bunch. People griped about the leadership in 2016. People griped about the leadership this year. I can assure you, people will gripe about the leadership under my watch too. We are just people, doing our best, adapting to an ever-changing landscape, in our “free time”, and we’re doing it…for you.

The next time you hear someone venting about WordCamp organization, whether it’s the European team or any other, just listen and be supportive and give a knowing nod, because you know that behind it all, no organization is perfect, least of all one as ethereal as ours. You also know that the elation, praise, gratitude and pride from organizers and attendees alike, outweighs all the rest.

Of all the great WordCamps I've been to over the years, #WCEU 2017 was the greatest. Great content, great conversations, great organization. pic.twitter.com/jXXA5y2YLU

“OMG it burns!” The pain shot up through my right nostril and landed squarely an inch above my right eye. I wiped the water off my face and with only my left eye open, peered around to see what was happening nearby.

Sure enough, I was not alone. Others were having similar bad experiences to this exercise that we’d all practiced many times before without incident.

We started speculating. Was it because there was no salt in the water? There had been none available and we’d been without fresh water all week and running off the tap. Theories abounded.

And then came, “Shhhhhhhh. May I remind you that this exercise is to be practiced with no talking. Observe your sensations and keep them to yourselves.”

By this time the pain had subsided, but there was no way I was going to attempt the left nostril. While I recovered from my sinuses being unpleasantly rinsed, a new shock set in. My concerns were being dismissed. I was being silenced.

My focus and trust wavered.

Transference

Growing up, I often felt that I lead a double life. There was the life at school or when I stayed with my grandparents during summers on the lake, and there was life at home. Life at home was full of secrets. Things that we didn’t talk about with everyone. Hardly anyone for that matter, certainly not with my teachers or my grandparents.

I found this out the hard way once when I recorded an incident that I’d witnessed at home (adult things) onto a piece of paper, which I then placed in a big, pink three-ring binder. I took the binder to school, hoping on no conscience level that someone would inquire about it and I’d have no choice but to show it and share my secret.

I so desperately wanted to share my secrets. What’s more, I quite desperately wanted to not have secrets, to discover that whatever was going on at my house was actually quite normal.

I would of course later learn that normal is relative. But that’s another story.

On top of the secrets—or possibly the cause of them—my folks seemed to lack a sense of communication. At least this is how I experienced it. I suspect that in fact most of this came from my father, that my mother was actually a great communicator, and that I took a bit more after my dad. Oh poor mom how we must have driven you nuts, may you rest in peace.

But these are only things you understand once you’re grown up. As a kid you wonder what the fuck is going on and why nobody’s talking about anything and where all the tension is coming from and why you always have to pretend that shit’s alright when it’s not.

The moral of this story is that as an adult I now rail against this. As an adult moving through this discovery of self and finally having confidence in my person I WANT TO TALK ABOUT EVERYTHING. I have a deep disdain for secrets, opacity and things left unsaid.

Poetic irony

On the final day of yoga camp we had a class in psychologically on the subject of, of all things, transference and counter-transference. If you weren’t familiar with these terms before, I imagine you’re getting a sense for them now (if not, go google, interesting stuff).

The most important point the psychologist giving the class made was that they are not illnesses. They are not a disorder. Everybody does this, absolutely everyone.

We all have shit—good or bad—from our past that colors how we perceive the world, and which can trigger certain kinds of reactions from us. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but understanding it and recognizing it when it happens makes all the difference to our encounters, relationships and even our world view.

When the nose rinsing torture exercise was over, we gathered in a circle for a new exercise. I lingered just on the outside of it, not feeling ready to be a part of the group. The teacher who had banished us to silence asked everyone if they were okay and I shook my head. She inquired and I said, “je ne suis pas contente.” And then I asked if I could elaborate or if I should keep it to myself and she said, “yeah, keep it to yourself.”

It took me at least an hour to work through everything I was feeling (and whom I was feeling it toward). Once I finally realized what it was and just let go of it, I created room for some new and much more interesting stuff.

The student and the teacher

When you are a teacher in training you are both student and future teacher. This might seem obvious, but I assure you that in practice it is not.

As a student you have certain expectations. You expect your teachers to be available to you and to be able to answer your questions. You expect them to be role models for what they are teaching, practicing what they preach. One could reasonably hope them to be good both at what they are teaching and the teaching of it. Just as one could reasonably expect that among the different teachers there was a method and consensus around the subject matter being taught.

As the student, if (and inevitably when) your expectations aren’t met, it would be natural to doubt your teacher’s abilities. You might at times call into question their professionalism. Their actions might anger you, leave you feeling frustrated, cheated or mislead. You might even fear for your safety.

The future teacher, however, sees that there are choices to be made, sometimes in the moment. As a future teacher you can look at a situation and decide what you might do differently. You can see that teachers make mistakes, and that they don’t always agree. The student may want to rail against the failed expectation, but the future teacher recognizes that therein also lies an opportunity to learn.

Like the teacher, the future teacher begins to understand the difference between what can be taught and what must be learned.

And what’s really interesting is when we realize that we are all students and teachers, all of us, all the time.
——

I have had a love-hate relationship with journaling since I was little. Basically, I have always wanted to journal. It’s something I’ve always felt I should do. Yet, whenever I’ve set out to do it, one of several things usually happens:

I don’t know what to say.

I don’t know who I’m saying it to.

I don’t actually know why I’m doing it or what value it has.

I get the horrible feeling that I could die and someone would actually read what I wrote.

I get on a roll for few months and eventually stop for various reasons, then feel like it’s hard to pick up again after time goes by.

On a couple of those latter occasions, I’ve even started up in whole new notebooks because it felt too odd to start again in the same one with a big time gap. And that just feels like a waste. So add, “feels guilty about wasting paper and nice notebooks” to the list of reasons why I haven’t been successful at journaling.

None of this is rational, mind you. And none of these reasons have even helped me give up on the idea of journaling, which would make more sense.

Cue a blog post by Alex Denning that I happened on last fall. He got the idea from Tim Ferriss who got the idea from someone else, but the concept is quite simple: spend 5 minutes in the morning, and 5 minutes in the evening, answering a couple of simple questions.

I started early January (not a resolution per se, but resolution adjacent), and have managed to keep the journal every day (except on a few occasions when I’ve been traveling, and I’ll just stop bringing it with me now because it’s a lost cause – though I’m able to pick up again easily once I’m home).

The results are quite extraordinary.

I am grateful for…

I had also long heard that actively practicing gratitude could be quite powerful, but outside of Thanksgiving Day it always seemed like so much new-agey nonsense. Of course I was grateful, what difference did it make if I said it out loud or wrote it down?

I am finding that it makes quite a bit of difference.

The exercise does not ask you to list all of the things you’re grateful for, but to write down 3. This means honing in on what’s most important to you, the things that you are most grateful for. It could be overall gratitude, or in that moment. The point is to not spend an hour thinking about it or analyzing the possibilities. Just write.

In the three months that I’ve been keeping this journal, my first item hasn’t changed: my health. My health is always on the top of my list because it is what I am most grateful for, knowing that without it so much more in my life wouldn’t be possible or would be adversely affected. Writing it down doesn’t make it more true than it was before, doesn’t make me more grateful, but it does make me more conscious as I go about my day and make choices that affect my health.

It’s also been interesting to see how the other items change (or don’t) over time. Every once in a while I’ll add a fourth item because I’m feeling particularly grateful for something that day. Not adding something to the list doesn’t mean I’m not grateful for it; writing the list creates focus around what I value the most, forcing me to be more sensitive to those things and people throughout my day.

It forces me to ask myself, “Am I living in a way that accurately reflects what matters to me most?”

What would make today great?

It never occurred to me to start off my day asking this simple question. It was always more like getting to the end of the day and thinking, “Wow, ok, that didn’t suck too bad.” And it’s really empowering to take back the control and set the tone for my own day.

Where do I set the bar? How do I define “great”? What do I want out of each day? Because yeah, I get to decide. And the bar doesn’t have to be neck-breakingly high. I quite honestly feel that it’s better if it’s not.

Sometimes tasks and specific things end up on this list, which again, should be no more than 3 or 4 items max. Increasingly over time, I find they’ve become broader stokes:

Get in a nice long walk.

Feel on top of my work load.

Write something.

And every once in a while I’ll throw in just for fun:

Surprise me.

Daily affirmations

More new-agey crap for some, but if you embrace it, it’s crazy-good therapy and yet another tool for shedding light both on what’s important and what ails you. Who doesn’t have doubts and fears that can hold them back in their day? Even the most confident or ego-inflated people I know have their demons or kryptonite.

The distinguishing feature of a daily affirmation is that it almost invariably starts with “I am ___”.

I am loved.

I am capable.

I am enough.

I belong.

I am a super hero…

——

You know what matters most, you know the tone you want to set and how high to place the bar, and you have affirmed your place in the world. Anything is possible now.

This exercise isn’t only interesting for the day, because saying these things “out loud” has a transformative effect. Embracing that transformation is the best part. Seeing how what’s important to you today, how you think about what makes your day great today, where you feel you need to affirm yourself today, might not be the same tomorrow, because you’ve brought the thoughts to the forefront of your consciousness, allowing them to change shape and create new meaning and understanding.

Amazing things that happened today…

I had a really hard time with this one for a while. “Amazing”? Who has 3 amazing things happen to them every day? It seemed like a lot to hope for, a lot of pressure put on, and a huge potential for disappointment should amazing things not have happened.

But I persevered. I decided not to fight against the idea of amazing, but rather question what it could mean.

Did it have to mean mind-blowing orgasms, palette-exploding gastronomic experiences or winning big bucks in the lottery? What could qualify as amazing as I looked back over my day, reflecting on how I spent my time and lived up to my own potential?

It turns out that it hasn’t been about lowering my expectations for amazing so much as looking for the amazing—without thinking of it as necessarily good or bad—in simple, everyday things. Amazing doesn’t have to be mind-blowing, it need only surprise, astonish or delight.

How could the day have been even better?

So it’s not enough to have 3 amazing things happen during the day, now I need to think about improving on the day even more? Gah, seems like a lot to ask. Yet again, it’s an interesting and challenging exercise.

What things keep coming up? What important things aren’t finding ample place in my day, or where am I spending time on things that aren’t that important?

Watch less TV.

Spend less time on social media.

Write more.

Do more yoga.

Recently, not often, but on a couple of occasions, after thinking about it for a minute or two, I simply wrote:

It was a good day.

——

Do you journal? Maybe you have another template or an experience you’d like to share? I’d love to hear about it! smile

He was calm, lying back on his bed petting the cat curled up on his side, “Yeah, she was being disrespectful, and I told her as much.”

“She was really upset; she was crying pretty hard,” I probed.

“That’ll do her some good.”

His words were spoken without irony or sarcasm, and as cold as they sounded, he wasn’t wrong.

Choosing sides

If you were to walk into a room and see a woman crying, surrounded by other women consoling her, it’s likely that you would assume that woman had been wronged. And if you were to learn that the person who wronged her was a man, you might start making further assumptions and passing character judgment on the guy, even before knowing the details of the event.

Woman balling and wailing against man generally translates into, “Oh that bastard!” It’s easy to see the woman as a victim and to immediately feel the injustice and take sides.

Except that in this case I knew something the others didn’t. I knew that there’d been a similar incident during a previous camp. So after confirming the source of conflict, I didn’t stay to console her—she was in good hands—I decided to go talk to him instead. Because I also knew that while not well-liked, he wasn’t the kind of person to be aggressive or mean, he just didn’t have much of a sense of humor when it came to certain things…like himself.

It was her first night at “yoga camp”, a yoga teacher training program I’ve been in for the past two years. She was one of five new campers for a total of 16 students and three teachers who would be living in close quarters and sharing meals for the next five days. We were off to a bad start, and I could feel the potential for a mob mentality pitting all of the women against him. Because he was that guy.

That guy

He is the guy who means well, who is just looking for connection like everyone else, but who is just, well, gauche. In yoga terms we politely say that we’re not “in phase” with him, as if he’s vibrating at a different frequency, and despite his best efforts does not fit into the melody or rhythm of the group.

That guy is not a good listener. He wants to show that he has things to teach and not much to learn. His superior air is off-putting on its own, but since his teachings also fall short more often than not, he further lacks the credibility needed to gain sympathy or respect. To boot he doesn’t exhibit tolerance, and so doesn’t inspire much for himself.

He’s not a bad guy. He’s a guy trying to protect himself because he’s likely been hurt, a lot. He’s a guy who puts up a front, who doesn’t show the authentic version of himself because to do so would make himself vulnerable, open to more hurt and ridicule. Or so he thinks.

In fact, the opposite is true. If he were open and honest about his pain, if he let down his guard even just a bit, if he let himself be the student rather than insist on doling out lessons, he wouldn’t be that guy anymore. He would more readily earn the trust and respect and sympathy of the group. Because we are all like him.

We all have our wounds and our fears and our needs. It’s difficult for anyone to let themselves be vulnerable, but vulnerability is where trust starts and where love blooms.

And maybe we have all stumbled around and been that guy at times, or that gal.

That gal

That gal is fleur de peau. She too has been hurt, and covers it up with a nervous smile. She laughs at things inappropriately. She feels easily wronged, and further feels the need to let the wrong-doer know what they’ve done. Injustice exasperates her, and her giggles can quickly turn to anger.

That gal feels small and fragile in the world, and so over-compensates, letting her emotion swing from one extreme to another as she tries to adapt to her environment. She is simultaneously meek and ferocious, unable to accept her vulnerability. Like that guy, she only wants to connect, to be a part of the group, but she too is gauche in her own way, struggling to feel that she belongs while wary of potential threats.

I cried on my first day of yoga camp too. Not because of one interaction per se, but little things that accumulated over the day, combined with the intensity of it all (living with a group of strangers for a week in the middle of nowhere is pretty intense). And maybe the relief of it all. Because I showed up with so much baggage, and could finally put it down. Once you’ve put it down, once you’ve made that conscious decision to say, “Ok, I have baggage and I’m putting it down now,” you then have to open it up and start unpacking it. And that can take a while.

What’s more, no one can help you, beyond being supportive, patient and without judgment. No one can tell you what you’re not ready to hear. No one can teach you what you’re not ready to learn. And some of these truths make us gauche, make us hurt, make us cry, make us put up barriers, until we’re ready to face them.

——

This text is originally from my newsletter, Making Connections, and may have been modified for publication here.

Three years ago I set out on a path to create change. My loose deadline: August 2017. My overarching goals: take a step back to get perspective on my career (and life) to date and find my new place in the world. What emerged in the first year: that I wasn’t looking for a job, but for experiences. What emerged in the second year: that what I wanted most was to be a part of team. Not just any team, but a dynamic, talented, supportive, passionate, united group of individuals with whom I could grow, feel a sense of belonging, and have an opportunity to create value.

I’m excited to announce that I found that team in the amazing folks over at Human Made, where I’m joining them as a full-time jumper-inner and proactive people pinger (aka, project manager).

FAQs

So, will you move to London?

Nope! While Human Made’s founders are English, and some of the team is based in and around London and throughout England, it’s a fully distributed company, with upwards of 50 employees working from all parts of the globe. Some of them are nomads who follow the weather or WordCamps or whims or all of the above. One of my search criteria when looking for employment was that it had to accommodate my lifestyle. Olivier and I are very happy in our little corner of Normandy and have no plans of moving at the moment. I do seem to be spending a bit of time in London though lately, and that’s pretty awesome. Great city.

What exactly do you do as a senior project manager?

I really have no idea, but every time I ask my team if I should be doing things differently, I’m told I’m doing great and to keep on as I do. So ask me again in six months, I hope to have figured it out by then.

(I’ve actually been able to boil my job description down to the following: practicing the fine art of communicationheart )

Human Made has a great reputation, but what’s it really like on the inside?

I’m probably not the best person to ask this question for two reasons: 1) I haven’t been with the company very long, 2) I don’t have other company experience to compare it to – I’ve been on my own for my whole career. What I can say is that so far it is everything I could have hoped for. The folks here are a diverse group of extremely talented, highly motivated individuals who manage to strike the balance between valuing the human experience and doing great work.

Are they hiring?

Yes! We’re always on the look out for talent for our growing team across the continents. For more information, check the website and get in touch.

“You don’t take a photograph, you make it.”
―Ansel Adams

When I was heavy into photography, what I loved most was the process.

Starting with that first moment I looked through the lens, framing the scene around me from my unique perspective. Certain details would interpolate me: a shadow, a reflection, a mood. Certain angles would intrigue me: peeking through a passageway, sweeping across an open expanse of floor or field, hovering from above. Certain subjects drew me in: a weathered face, the gradient color of morning sky, the geometry of everything.

In the days before digital, the process afforded a panel of choices and with each step, the possibility to influence the image in some way. From the film format to the film type to the choice of camera, each variable created a number of unknowns waiting to be discovered. Grain, contrast, film speed, lenses and filters, and even some of the quirky effects of the cameras themselves—pinhole or plastic cameras with their infamous light leaks and vignetting—contributed to the quality of the final image.

From there the film would be developed and mounted in an enlarger to be printed on any assortment of papers. Each step of the process was an opportunity—or a risk—of transforming the image in some way, no matter how small.

While some photographers search for realism in their work, I was always more fascinated by how the process resulted in images that my eye alone couldn’t see. The delight of making photographs for me came from the whimsy and serendipity of exploration, trial and error that transformed the world as I saw it when I released the shutter into something new and unexpected.

“In Hollywood if you don’t have a shrink, people think you’re crazy.”
―Johnny Carson

I resisted the idea of therapy because I grew up thinking it was for crazy people, or at the very least people with emotional problems and that clearly couldn’t be me.

But it was.

I found myself in distress following a breakup that left me in a precarious and emotionally abusive situation, and a friend finally convinced me to go see her therapist. She told me that I could trust her therapist, that it was someone who kept things simple and had helped her in the past.

Distraught, I caved and made an appointment.

I continued to resist at first. The woman was austere, unwelcoming, and while the room was pleasant enough, the short 20-mintue sessions made me anxious. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know how therapy worked. I told her as much, but she gave me few prompts.

“Tell me why you’re here.”
“I don’t know, because I feel trapped.”

When the time was up, there was no lingering. She would stand up and go open the door, inviting me to leave. I recall ending one session in tears and stopped on the way out to ask her if my mascara was smudged. Not a peep. She just sort of grimaced and nodded to the open doorway.

I was not there to be coddled. I was not there for sympathy. I was there to talk and work through my problems. She was not warm, but she listened and did not judge.

After a few sessions, I finally started talking. Really talking. The more I talked, the more I wanted to talk, the more I felt like I had been waiting my whole life to talk. It was the most liberating feeling I had ever known.

You see, one of the reasons that I thought I couldn’t possibly benefit from therapy was because I thought I knew everything. I had all of these ideas in my head about what had happened, how I felt, what I needed and what my choices were – I had had all of the conversations already, by myself, in my head. I had rationalized it all to death and I still felt miserable and trapped.

I discovered that those ideas, once spoken, took on new meaning. When I heard them out loud and bounced them off the stoic face of someone unequivocally on my side but who saw me, my situation and my ideas objectively, I came to realize that I knew very little. My thoughts were not fixed, static or final. Some of them were down right ridiculous and once spoken, those same beliefs that had seemed so serious and unwavering in the confines of my mind dissolved.

Therapy helped me out of a bad situation. Its greatest benefit, however, was that it taught me not only how to talk, but the real value of talking. Getting all of those thoughts and ideas locked inside the confines of our minds out into the world so that they may be transformed into new understanding, relief, freedom.

“Something that you feel will find its own form.”—Jack Kerouac

I always sit down with an idea, a theme, a sentence, a memory. There is some inkling of a beginning, of something I want to say, share, explore. I used to try very hard to stick to that idea, with the feeling that I set out to do something and so should finish it. That resulted in a lot of half-written drafts and bad feelings.

“I have trouble finishing what I start.”
“My ideas are shit.”
“Who would want to read this?”
“What am I trying to say?”
“I’m doing it wrong.”

Until I started to let go and just write. One day I sat down with my inkling, and instead of trying to push it along and turn it into what I thought it should be, I let it pull me along and transform itself into what it was.

Even now as I write this final paragraph I feel the urge to want to control, to shape, to know, to be several steps ahead. Instead I resist and enjoy each step of the process and the whimsy and serendipity of discovery. Instead I just put my thoughts and ideas out there and let them be transformed as they take on new meaning and give me new understanding. Instead I play with filters and let myself be drawn into and intrigued by angles and moods, all the while guided by a simple underlying principal: that making these connections from a place of honesty and authenticity can allow me to contribute value and beauty to the world.

——

This text is originally from my newsletter, Making Connections, and may have been modified for publication here.

My sabbatical year is over. A new year is here, full of promise. The final leg of my 3-year plan. The first leg of a new plan forming – the one that will concretize long-awaited change, introducing new challenges and experiences.

False starts

I sometimes wish that January 1 was a magical day that set some sort of cosmic reset button on life, but of course this isn’t the case. January 1 is simply the day after December 31, however symbolic it does serve its purpose as a bearing point in time.

The primary goal of my sabbatical was to shut down my freelancing business, but, as fate would have it, that would drag out for months. To this day, I still haven’t been paid in full for my final project, but that’s a story for another time.

I was also gearing up for WordCamp Paris, which took place February 5-6. It was my first time taking the lead on such an event, and my team and I had been working hard since the summer to finally respond to years of increasing demand, with no venue large enough to meet it. And we succeeded. We surmounted significant growing pains and fear over the budget and responsibility that such a leap represented, and moved into the CAP15 (now called the New CAP Event Center) to welcome upwards of 500 people, twice the capacity of recent years.

Two weeks prior I had popped over to London for the first Day of REST, organized by Human Made. On my way home, I caught a cold. A really bad cold.

And so I spent the week before WordCamp Paris, and the full two days of the event itself, in horrible shape, gobbing paracetamol like nobody’s business and pushing through. Because nothing would have kept me away. I just wasn’t at 100% and couldn’t enjoy the fruits of my labor as much as I would have liked. Everyone else did, though, and that’s what matters most.

This seemed a continuum of months past, though I wouldn’t let it set the tone for the year. I still had work to do. Instead, I became increasingly aware that I was in a unique position to be generous with my time and energy while taking time off from work, and that in doing so, I had to remain vigilant about my health.

2016 was marked by lessons about priorities and limitations.

WordCamp Europe or bust

Sometime before WordCamp Europe 2015 in Seville, the organizing team (which I was not yet a part of) put out a call for candidates. Twitter lit up with resounding rounds of “France!”, “Paris!”.

The 2016 host city would be announced at the end of the event, but they proposed a meeting of interested parties during Contributor Day. I went. I liked what I heard. I decided that day that I would do everything in my power to make it happen.

That meant rallying the troops on the ground, searching for venues and compiling a provisional budget. It meant joining the team for the 2016 edition in Vienna. It meant following along as WordCamp Europe exploded before our eyes, and changed all the rules as to what we needed to provide if we were indeed to host it in France. It meant that while I was preparing WordCamp Paris, I was also preparing our candidature and being onboarded to a new team.

It might seem like it went against my plan to do less in order to give more of myself, but not really. It was a unique opportunity to give all myself to this goal of bringing WordCamp Europe to France. I wouldn’t have been able to accomplish it had I been working full-time. You know the outcome: WordCamp Europe 2017 will be held in Paris, France, June 15-17, and I am ecstatic.

2016 was marked by lessons of perseverance and purpose.

Balance, period.

We often hear people talk about work-life balance. It makes sense to want to strike an equilibrium between the time we spend with our families and outside our families, between the things we do for money and the things we do for pleasure. Except that those lines are increasingly blurred. We don’t necessarily spend time and energy outside of our families for financial gain, and any stress we might be living on the outside is more than likely to follow us home (especially when an increasing number of us work from home). Professional relationships are also often friendships.

I am now of the opinion that there is no such thing as work-life balance, there is just a balanced life, period.

The decisions we make, the way we fill our days, the quality of our relationships, our physical and mental health – all affect every aspect of our lives, whether related to how we make money, where we donate our time or who we share our lives with. Increasingly, a balanced life for me is one in which each day is attentive to my personal needs, nurtures my relationships and works in some way toward my larger goals.

I have written to some extent about the toll that making change has had on my marriage, and the devastating effects of burn out and emotional stress.

2016 was marked by lessons in managing expectations and in communicating, no matter how much (and especially when) it hurts.

The road ahead

The best part about the future is that it hasn’t happened yet! And so there is so much to look forward to, so many surprises lying in wait, so many new things to be discovered and experienced.

Besides WordCamp Europe, I have a few things on my docket this year:

Getting back to work. While visiting Philadelphia back in December for WordCamp US, I spent time talking with companies of all shapes and sizes about what their needs were, and how the skills and experiences of this hardened freelancer might fit in. When asked what I was looking for, my reply was always, “I’m looking to join a team.” No firm offers on the table as of this writing, but several discussions underway. My hope is to be gainfully employed by this summer. If we haven’t spoken and you think I’d be a good fit for your team, don’t hesitate to reach out.

Getting my yoga on. I mentioned at the start of last year that I had joined a teacher training program. It’s been an amazing experience, and if all goes well, I graduate in July. The diploma doesn’t mean much since yoga isn’t recognized in France like it is in some other countries, but I’ve learned a lot and have advanced my personal practice more than I ever could have on my own, which was the main goal. I do love teaching, and would love to be more connected to my very rural, local community through health and fitness. Exit strategy? Something like that… wink

Am writing. While my blog and my book didn’t get as much love as I had planned in 2016, my at least monthly newsletter experiment took off and has been an absolute pleasure and sometimes sanctuary for me. I’m sticking with it in 2017 to see where it leads. The blog will be getting some updates soon, in part to better integrate the Making Connections archives, and to create clearer categories that will allow me to branch out more easily and be more creative with my writing in general. The book is still happening. In fact to some extent, it will be an extension of the newsletter that’s been acting as a path toward exploration and discovery.

Homeward bound. I’ve enjoyed doing some traveling recently, and whereas I do have a few trips in mind for this year, I’m mostly looking forward to being home. I’m looking forward to spending time in the garden and working on home improvement projects. I’m looking forward to drinks on the terrace and moonlit nights, to having friends over and discovering new places in the area to grab a bite or go for a hike. Nomadism is a popular lifestyle these days, but I am grateful for my home and my country life. I’m grateful for these roots that help keep me grounded, that teach me about growth, about taking care of what we love, about being invested in our surroundings, about appreciating the simple things in life.

——

The featured image was taken by my lovely friend, Erin Berard, on a trip to Guernsey back in 2010 heart

One of my favorite metaphors for life is that part during the airline pre-flight safety demonstration when they say, “In case of cabin depressurization, an oxygen mask will drop from above.” No, not that part, the part afterward when they say, “Make sure and secure your own mask before helping anyone else in need.”

Make sure and secure your own mask.

Because if you can’t breathe yourself, what good are you to others? If you can’t breathe, what happens to you? Spoiler: nothing good.

When life starts to depressurize or even plummet, there’s no convenient oxygen mask that automatically pops down from above to bring you needed air. This has two important consequences: 1) you may not be aware that you’re in a critical situation, and 2) you may not know where to turn for help.

Oxygen depletion

According to the Internet, signs of an insufficient supply of oxygen for prolonged periods include poor coordination or judgment, difficulty completing simple tasks, agitation and even aggressiveness. Other symptoms can include headaches, drowsiness and visual impairment.

You wanna know something interesting? These are some of the symptoms that I experienced last year. Yes, these are also common symptoms of what we call burnout.

Burnout is a state of physical, mental and/or emotional exhaustion, and when left untreated, it can have devastating physiological and psychological effects.

Burnout is a form of oxygen depletion, and can be just as debilitating and dangerous.

I don’t have emotional problems

My mom used to have a friend who suffered from depression. I don’t actually know this, but it’s what I’ve inferred. What I do know is that this woman used to cry a lot, and that my mom spent significant time with her on the phone or at her house off and on over a period of several years.

One day I asked my dad about it and his face did a sort of eye-rolly thing, the kind of expression that’s somewhere in between incredulity and annoyance, and he said, “She has emotional problems.” The answer was meant to cover all the bases and avoid further questioning. It was something he clearly didn’t take very seriously, but that he didn’t want to talk about either. Whatever “it” was, it wasn’t good. It was something I should avoid having or suffer my father’s (and possibly the world’s) disappointment.

Sometime during college, I developed recurring back pain. At first I thought it was due to the heavy lifting I was doing, working events and moving concert and other stage equipment around as if I were a few inches taller, a few pounds heavier and with muscle mass that I did not have. This easily explained away the physical pain I was enduring.

Except that the scans and visits to the doctor and various specialists were inconclusive. No one could identify any physical attributes that would be causing me such pain. So after a few cracks and realignments and pain killers, the doctors recommended I take it easy, avoid heavy lifting and work on strengthening my abdominal muscles.

Not only did the pain persist, it got worse.

One day it was so bad, I walked into the student medical center in tears. There was no one there to greet me initially and so I cried out for help. A nurse poked her head out, and asked with a startled look, “Are you okay?”

“No,” I wailed, “my back is killing me, please do something!”

She approached me slowly as I continued to sob and then said, maybe not as gently as I would have liked, “Can I call someone for you? Do you need a psychiatrist?”

I, of course, didn’t have emotional problems; I had back pain, and so I spent the better part of the year on pain killers and with a lumbar pillow, taking many of my classes lying on the ground and getting unsympathetic looks from professors.

Shortly after graduation, while back living with my parents and looking for work, I wandered into a local bookstore. There, I stumbled onto a book by a Doctor John Sarno entitled, Healing Back Pain: The Mind-Body Connection. I took it home and devoured it while propped up with my little portable lumbar pillow that hadn’t left my side (or rather, my back) for over a year.

Three days later, I tossed my lumbar pillow in the trash.

We all have emotional problems

Physical pain or injury is tangible. We can see it on a scan. We can treat it with a bandage or medication. We usually know what caused it.

Emotional pain or injury isn’t so simple. It involves feelings, which as we all know can be messy. The source of the pain can run deep, and can involve stress or experiences that range from the mundane to the severely traumatic. Fear, anger, shame, jealousy, inadequacy and loneliness are very real and very hard to talk about. They can be self-actualizing and self-reinforcing.

In Sarno’s book, for example, he talks about how the fear of pain acts to reinforce the pain. We fear the pain, so we crisp up, using defensive posturing thinking that we are protecting ourselves, when in reality we are creating more stress instead of the relaxed state we need to avoid pain. The more we fear, the more we hurt and so the more we continue to fear.

But what he really touches on, is the fact that the pain itself is emotional.

Why? Because it’s easier to talk about. We believe it’s easier to treat. Because as a society we don’t want to be seen as having emotional problems. Those are not the acceptable type of problems to have. They are a sign of weakness, or worse. Because society values success, strength and carrying the extra weight no matter your weight class.

What I learned was that physical pain can manifest from an emotional place, a form of hypoxia warning us that we are in trouble, that we need to take care of ourselves, that we may need help.

Just as we all need oxygen, we all have emotions that can tear and fracture and break as easily as a bone, muscle or tendon. And just like our bodies, our minds need exercise, rest and care.

Oxygen bar

We deplete our oxygen when we run from our problems, when we work ourselves into the ground, when we carry a heavy load for too long, when we try to carry all the weight by ourselves, when we don’t set boundaries, when we stay in unhealthy or vampiric relationships, when we don’t share our burden, when we don’t stop to breathe.

We replenish our oxygen when we are attentive to our needs, when we recognize that if we do not place the mask firmly over our own heads first, we can be of no use to others, that we can even become a burden to others and that we risk our very well-being.

I do think these conversations are getting easier and more common, that more people are talking about emotional struggles, and that in the same self-actualizing way, the more we talk about it, the more others know it’s okay to talk about, the more we collectively relieve ourselves of the stigma. Like an oxygen bar, every time we are willing to step up and share through a phone call, a hallway or watercooler chat, a blog post or a personal newsletter, we can open ourselves up, learn, ask for help, admit when everything’s not great, take a deep breath and oxygenate.

——

This text is originally from my newsletter, Making Connections, and may have been modified for publication here.

When you think of a bubble, what imagery comes to mind ? Something weightless, fragile and transparent ? Or something enclosed, secure and protective?

A bubble is often used to describe an area in our lives that can encapsulate us, sequester us, keep us single-mindedly revolving around what’s inside. It commonly refers to communities, but also to work places, politics, lifestyles and even…relationships.

Inside the bubble we feel a sense of harmony and belonging. We have confidence in our shared world view, in our common purpose. From within we’re sheltered from what’s outside – sometimes so much so that we don’t realize we’re in a bubble at all…

When outside views challenge us inside our bubble, it’s easy to dig in and get more comfortable. Like a cat that tries to fit itself into a box no matter how small, feeling secure and hidden, in a perfect vantage point should it need to flee or attack, so do we cling to our bubbles in order to fight off offenders and preserve the status quo within.

Sometimes, the status quo gets challenged from inside the bubble. Life is not always calm and stable, but ebbs and flows, with its share of tidal waves (and the occasional tsunami). There can be conflict and dissension and suddenly the place we once thought safe brings us strife. As we are still in the bubble, we don’t always realize that its confines are no longer strategic, but may be trapping us, may be doing us harm.

Bubbles aren’t inherently bad. It’s when we forget that they are there or that we have the possibility to step outside—even the need to step outside—that they can have a negative effect on our well being.

Lately, I’ve been feeling the need to unbubble. For me, that’s meant physically removing myself from my bubbles – changing my environment, traveling, trying new things. We don’t always have this possibility, but we can still break out of our norms, our routines, our stuck mindsets…

Up for something different? Let’s unbubble for a few minutes.

If you’re not in a calm place where you can sit undisturbed for 5-10 minutes, come back later when you are.

Ready?

Video transcript:

Close your eyes. Make sure you’re sitting in a comfortable, relaxed position. Block out any noise or distractions around you. Now, take a deep breath through your nose and with your diaphragm, filling your lungs completely, feeling your chest expand. And breath out again slowly through your nose. Your shoulders are relaxed. Breath in again deeply, and out slowly.

Now think about all of the different bubbles in your life. They can be broad things like your work or your community, or they can be specific things like recent interactions you’ve had, unresolved conflicts, or any ideas or desires that have been dominating your thoughts lately. Take the first ones that come to mind, without judging whether they are good or bad, and place them each in their own individual bubbles. Picture them floating right in front you.

Choose one of these bubbles, and think about how it makes you feel. Try and stay focused on the thing itself and the feelings it procures, without getting swept up in the thoughts, events or ideas themselves.

You are now on the outside looking in. From this viewpoint, you are detached from any emotion associated with it, but can see the emotions clearly. You can see the different actors involved, and you can see their emotions too. You are only an observer. You can look in objectively.

If it is a desire or something that evokes positive feelings, whether it’s love, joy, freedom or pleasure, hold on to those feelings while you gently push the bubble away. Notice that you can maintain these positive feelings – that they do not have to be attached to or dependent on the bubble.

If what you put in the bubble is a source of conflict or any negative feelings, try replacing those emotions with their opposites to see how it changes your view. Remember, you are only observing. Try replacing any fear with a feeling of safety or confidence, any shame with a sense of pride or indifference; replace anger with compassion and any sorrow with joy. Observe any new feelings that arise.

If there are any residual negative feelings that you aren’t able to replace, put them in a bubble as well. Look at them for what they are: feelings and thoughts outside of yourself. What shape do they take inside the bubble? Do they remind you of a texture or a color, maybe a smell or something tangible? Visualize them as objects outside of yourself and in the bubble, and, when you’re ready, gently push them away.

Continue to breath calmly, your body is relaxed. Repeat this process for other bubbles if you wish. Stay for a moment as an observer on the outside looking in, until finally you push away and enjoy a few minutes with a great distance between you and these bubbles of your life. You are detached, calm, free, unbubbled…

…When you are ready, open your eyes. Take a nice long stretch and try to yawn if you can. How do you feel?

——

This text is originally from my newsletter, Making Connections, and may have been modified for publication here.

He wasn’t wrong, but his words stung and I sat in silence holding back tears until we pulled up in front of the house.

I had gone on a day trip to Mazamitla with a new acquaintance, an American from Arizona who sold some kind of relaxation device I was skeptical of. It’s easy to make acquaintances in expat communities.

We’d had a great time on our outing, visiting the church and photographing the dramatic, vividly painted statues of Maria and Jesus and various saints. We drank cervezas and ate fish tacos and talked, though about what I don’t recall. I want to say that he knew why I was in Mexico. That he knew it wasn’t because I was an expat there, or because I had some kind of wares to sell.

On the way back, just as we were heading into the gated community in Ajijic where my parent’s house was, I spoke about the decisions I had to make. I talked about their beautiful Mexican home with its terracotta floors and its cozy enclosed garden, about how happy they had been in it all those years, about all my fond memories from previous trips out, before they fell ill.

I was reminiscing, but I was also lamenting. I didn’t want to let go.

I had been renting it out, but it was becoming difficult to maintain from so far away. Things were falling apart and in need of repair.

“It sounds like you don’t know what you want.” His tone was patronizing, as if not knowing what I wanted was something to be ashamed of. As if everyone should know what they want all the time. As if that were the important question. What I want.

I did know what I wanted: I wanted to not have to be making those kinds of decisions. I wanted for my parents to be alive. I wanted to not have to let go. I wanted this acquaintance to have a little compassion for what I was going through, for what I was feeling.

All of those things were too much to ask.

What I want

My generation was told from a very young age to figure out what we want. I would guess that this is a post-war phenomenon for the Western world; I don’t imagine that my father, who grew up during the Depression, had such indulgent notions.

Our parents bounced us around from class to class so that we might explore our talents. Dance classes, theater, gymnastics, synchronized swimming, flute, piano – what might we want to do to otherwise occupy our time outside of school? What did we like? What were we good at?

I liked watching television (and I was really good at it). I particularly liked cartoons, and while I don’t remember much about them, I do remember the public service announcements that punctuated my favorite shows on Saturday mornings. They were short and catchy with their clever songs, and they tricked me into learning things.

Zack of All Trades was one I remember well. “Don’t pout, check it out, Zack’s gonna show you what work’s about,” sung by the sultry voice of Luther Vandross.

He encouraged us to identify things we liked to do or were good at, to prepare to find a job later in life.

“Jenny benny bo benny, you’re gonna make a good penny, when you know you have many talents.” He was literally speaking right to me.

So it was easy, just look at what you like to do and what you’re good at, and you can turn it into a job.

Besides watching television, I loved to dance. It stuck more than any of the other extra-curricular activities I’d tried, so in high school I joined the School of the Arts, and continued classes in college. I was a good dancer, but not a great one; I was lazy and under-trained compared to the serious dancers, but it was what made me feel good. It was what I wanted to do.

So I told my mom, “Mom, I want to be a dancer.”

But she saw someone who was lazy and under-trained and replied, “The only way you’ll make a living dancing is as a stripper.”

I declared a major in journalism.

You get what you need

I don’t remember exactly when I stopped thinking about what I want. Maybe it was after I didn’t get into graduate school, probably because I didn’t want it badly enough, and ended up going to a private photography school instead. Maybe it was when I stopped working as a photographer, the thing I had wanted for years, to dedicate myself full time to my budding web agency. Maybe it was when I broke off the relationship that I thought I wanted so much, the one I thought would last forever.

I envy people who know what they want, those people with such a singular and unwavering focus who become surgeons and concert pianists or who’ve been practicing a same skill since they were four years old.

Envy is not the right word. Marvel is more accurate. I also marvel at how much importance we give to knowing what we want, when life doesn’t actually seem to care much. When things rarely work out how we plan, when we rarely get what we want, when what we think we want ultimately isn’t what we want at all.

Bucket List

I must have talked about bucket lists with friends in the past, but when he brought it up, it sounded completely foreign. I could tell that he really wanted to talk about his, but he was shy coming out with it. I inched up and brought my ear close to his face. “Go on, whisper it to me.”

He admitted that he dreamed of living on a tropical island, and starting a family there.

It didn’t really sound like a bucket list. It sounded like a lifestyle. I was glad that he shared it with me. We’d only just met. I love the feeling when someone confides in me. It’s such a great responsibility and a great honor.

I told him that not only did it sound lovely, but it sounded attainable. “Do it!” I encouraged zealously.

After the effort he made, I felt I owed him my own story. So I thought about it. What did I want to do before I die?

I wish I could remember the name of the author who said that she hoped to live long enough to write all of the books in her head, because that way I could borrow her quote and give her proper credit.

——

This text is originally from my newsletter, Making Connections, and may have been modified for publication here on my website.